Path of Radiance: Ike Guide and Strategy Discussion

[Jterr]

Ike was meh in the beginning of Smash 4, and I remember down throw to Aether was like the only throw combo for Ike that wasn't very consistent. Ever since the buffs he's been better and just in general more fun to use. Ike is special to me because he one of the first Lords I remembered playing Fire Emblem for the first time. I think he might be the most buffed character in 1 patch in Smash 4. Idk, I might be wrong.
Nair combos are awesome. Down tilt to fair is useful, and his grab combos are amazing. His dash attack covers a wide range and is really powerful. Down tilt is also good for punishing no ledge invincibility. Back air is disgustingly strong.
One thing I wish Ike could do is Quick Draw to Aether in midair, like Fox and Falco. It would improve his recovery a lot, but his recovery isn't bad. Also I kinda wish default Aether threw shock waves when he lands, just like in the Tellius games.

 

[Mario766]

I don't remember down throw Aether being a workable combo ever.

Down throw N-Air was the most reliable combo.

 

[LordShade67]

I don't remember down throw Aether being a workable combo ever.

Down throw N-Air was the most reliable combo.

Only with bad DI. And MAYBE fatties. In other words, nowhere near good.

 

[HoSmash4]

What are ike's ledge coverage options?

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

What are ike's ledge coverage options?

There's two ways to do this.

1) Ledge reads. Retreating Fair, retreating Nair (and Bair followup), shield into grab, pivot FTilt at roll distance, Uair at their ledge jump height
2) Ledge trump reads. Ledge trump Bair. Fake-out ledge trump the next time and do USmash at roll distance instead.

Your biggest worry on the latter is that, if they know how to buffer, they can really mix around your options.

I have a video example of auto-canceling being essential. Check the vid around the 1:19 marker.

 

[Stealth309]

My personal favorite thing to do on the ledge when the opponent tries to recover low is dair spike. It's so cool.

Also, I have never, ever, EVER seen my boy Zhao get 2-stocked. I was shocked to see that video.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

Er, why does Ike lose the Roy MU when he outranges him and outclasses him in aerials?

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

My personal favorite thing to do on the ledge when the opponent tries to recover low is dair spike. It's so cool.

Also, I have never, ever, EVER seen my boy Zhao get 2-stocked. I was shocked to see that video.

I actually had no idea he was noteworthy outside of Smashladder till you brought it up.

Er, why does Ike lose the Roy MU when he outranges him and outclasses him in aerials?

Ike definitely does not lose to Roy. On top of superior neutral game, Counter shuts down his recovery early.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

I actually had no idea he was noteworthy outside of Smashladder till you brought it up.



Ike definitely does not lose to Roy. On top of superior neutral game, Counter shuts down his recovery early.

I know, I have seen Ryo do this and it works quite well yet I have him outclassed in a few areas including the obvious ground speed and I saw JoeKing's Ike guide and well Roy appears as one of his disadvantaged MU.

 

[LordShade67]

I know, I have seen Ryo do this and it works quite well yet I have him outclassed in a few areas including the obvious ground speed and I saw JoeKing's Ike guide and well Roy appears as one of his disadvantaged MU.

The only thing Roy has over Ike is mobility numbers and better smashes. Most everything else, Ike by far outclasses Roy.

 

[Arrei]

Better mobility is a pretty big plus when you pair it with Roy's power, though. As for countering Roy's recovery, don't forget Ike's also vulnerable to counter shenanigans, and Roy also packs a quick, disjointed Bair and Fair to shut down Quick Draw with good timing. I can't call that matchup anything other than even.

 

[Stealth309]

Better mobility is a pretty big plus when you pair it with Roy's power, though. As for countering Roy's recovery, don't forget Ike's also vulnerable to counter shenanigans, and Roy also packs a quick, disjointed Bair and Fair to shut down Quick Draw with good timing. I can't call that matchup anything other than even.

Roy's off-stage shenanigans are pretty risky though.

 

[zhao_guang]

There's two ways to do this.

1) Ledge reads. Retreating Fair, retreating Nair (and Bair followup), shield into grab, pivot FTilt at roll distance, Uair at their ledge jump height
2) Ledge trump reads. Ledge trump Bair. Fake-out ledge trump the next time and do USmash at roll distance instead.

Your biggest worry on the latter is that, if they know how to buffer, they can really mix around your options.

I have a video example of auto-canceling being essential. Check the vid around the 1:19 marker.

WHY YOU GOTTA EXPOSE ME LIKE THIS?!?! /namesearch

lmao i got wrecked. from what i remember our matches were relatively back and forth. I feel like the MU is dead even, though i could be convinced that Ike has a slight advantage post-patch.

GGs Rango, play again soon!

 

[LordShade67]

What good are Roy's mobility specs when he has no way to force Ike to, you know, approach? Roy wants to be in his opponent's face. And if he can't do that, he crumbles. Especially since his spacing got nerfed after the shield changes.Add to that his combos aren't true on Ike, and it just makes it worse. Like Stealth said, Roy takes a risk every time he goes offstage to edgeguard; Ike, meanwhile, CAN go offstage with FAir, BAir, or Counter if he wants to, or just sit at the edge charging Eruption. As for Roy's power, what power? He can kill you with FSmash early? That's cute. But guess what? He needs a hard read with it to kill Ike. He has no true hit confirms, and the ones that people think work(Like DThrow > Blazer).....don't. Meanwhile, Ike gets UThrow > FAir/BAir over the edge and UThrow > UAir everywhere else which, at worst, is a 50/50.

Edit: Oh, and Ike's Dash options >>>>> Roy's.

 

[Arrei]

Well, it's not like we can force Roy to approach either. Best both of us can do is threaten each other with spacing until someone's confident enough to commit.

Roy's combos are true up to a point after which he has to try to land strings, right? Just as we have to do. Except his mobility lets him react better and stay in our face, where we really don't want him to be. And last I knew, he's got good setups like falling Uair which we lack once our opponent's damage gets higher.

I did forget that we can kill him with an Uthrow Uair true combo, though, correct? And he doesn't have that luxury.

 

[Mario766]

Roy's combos aren't nearly as true as ours. He stops getting combos out of throws earlier than us, and Roy falls fast enough for up throw to true combo into up air/f-air at kill percents. His other combos are like Marth/Lucina, falling up airs.

 

[LordShade67]

That's true, but in the spacing department, Ike has the upper hand due to better reach and safer on shield when spaced(Optimized Jab 1 and FTilt, for example).

Not really. At Low %, DThrow > UTilt for Roy only true combos fastfallers and certain lightweights like Pikachu. Ike is neither, and can react before Roy can UTilt, allowing him to either A. Double Jump and read Roy's movement, B. Counter, or C. Airdodge through UTilt and punch Roy in the face(And yes. I've labbed this and it works.). Yeah, they're predictable options, but they're still options, and it means Roy has to guess every time he grabs Ike at those %s. Can't really say on the UAir.

And yes, UThrow > UAir true combo kills Roy starting around 85s-90s, I think?

Edit: 'd on the combos bit.

 

[Arrei]

I don't have much time to spend in the lab lately, so I'm hoping somebody has data to share on a few topics.

- I seem to have more success than I really should by dropping next to people as they wait in shield, then using Utilt at kill percent. Is Utilt's low starting hitbox good for catching people by their feet in a slightly shrunken shield, or am I merely thwarting a shield drop for a would-be punish with an empty hop Utilt?

- I landed Utilt for a kill on, I believe a ZSS who was hanging from the ledge for a hair too long, getting her fingers slashed. Since her ledge grab pose is not one of the ones that appears to extend her hitbox over the ledge, does Utilt hit the entire cast if they've lost their ledge invincibility?

- At what character's height is someone too short to hit with Uair while grounded?

- Do we have enough time to blast Mewtwo's Teleport to ledge with Eruption on reaction, or do we have to hope we can predict when he'll use it? It feels like it's faster than every other teleportation move.

 

[Mario766]

Up-Tilt starts below Ike, it hits as far as below the stage entirely at times. All sweet spot, also.

We do have enough time, but it's more of a read, not a reaction.

 

[AbelCor]

So I've got 2 questions:

-Why do many Ikes use uthrow instead of dthrow at lower percents? Is it to stale it?

-Do we have any guaranteed follow ups after dtilt at 0?

Thank you~

 

[LordShade67]

So I've got 2 questions:

-Why do many Ikes use uthrow instead of dthrow at lower percents? Is it to stale it?

-Do we have any guaranteed follow ups after dtilt at 0?

Thank you~

Pretty much, yes. Stale UThrow, from what I've read, makes kill confirming easier with it at high %s or something? I'll have to look again.
Maybe RAR BAir, but that can be difficult. Aside from that, no.

 

[Arrei]

Yup, I use Uthrow instead of Dthrow just to stale it and keep the combo working for even just a little bit longer.

I'm also not sure if it's just my opponent's DIing wrong or what, but it feels like Uthrow's less susceptible to DI mixups than Dthrow is, in that DIing inward against Dthrow puts them directly above Ike while DIing away moves them a good ways away, making it a 50/50.

 

[Mario766]

Dthrow has a worse angle, making DI more effective.

Up throw is just more efficient, by far.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

So I have been maining both Ike and Cloud and my question is: Should I just use one or stick with both?

 

[Arrei]

If you mean practicing both to pull one out as the situation calls for, I'd say you're better off picking one - Cloud's projectile and heavy reliance on Limit Break aside, the two play a bit too similarly to cover any of the other's weaknesses as a secondary, I think.

 

[MaximalGFX]

Anyone else been pretty successfully at simply droping down the stage and reverse Up-B as a edgeguard mix-up? You need to space it just right so that you grab the ledge after the Up-B, if you hit your opponent at any point it will spike them. It's pretty good because it can cover that 2-frames of vulnerability before grabbing the ledge.

It's pretty damn safe and can net you some super early kill. Your opponent will be scared of you anytime you're off stage

 

[Arrei]

Hmm... I don't know about that being safe. Numerous recoveries can be pretty hazardous to our health if we're performing Aether smack in their attack range, especially if we have our backs to them.

 

[Mario766]

Risky, aerials serve better coverage

 

[MaximalGFX]

I might have badly explained it. You drop down and start your Up-B while they are still pretty far away from the ledge. Once they get close to you, you are already in your invincibility frames and you are creating a wall with aether that they will have to cross. It's a mix-up, you don't wanna do it all the time, but it might get you an early KO when you do.

I'll try to record it and post a GIF here.

 

[Arrei]

I think we've got the idea. But when you do this against a low recovery, not only do you have no protection against attacks from behind if they are able to stick a hitbox in the path of your jump, since your sword is spinning above and in front of you, but a number of recoveries can simply hit you from behind while you're in the spin itself, and most characters that don't have a hitbox on their recovery can just stall out Aether anyway.

 

[WorstGanonWorld]

- I landed Utilt for a kill on, I believe a ZSS who was hanging from the ledge for a hair too long, getting her fingers slashed. Since her ledge grab pose is not one of the ones that appears to extend her hitbox over the ledge, does Utilt hit the entire cast if they've lost their ledge invincibility?

Tried this on FD (left ledge) with every character except for the miis.

Utilt doesn´t work on :
Greninja
Palutena
Cloud
Ganondorf (I keep getting phantomhits all the time, maybe it DOES work but it must be extremely tight positioning then.)

Had some trouble hitting Diddy Kong and Shulk, but it does work on them.

If anyone had success hitting any of the characters above, feel free to correct my mistake.

 

[Mario766]

They hang too low.

Good luck.

 

[IkeUsmashftw]

that is pretty kick *** i need to watch that again

In general from my experiences Ike vs Ness is a bad matchup for ness in the sense that ike's counter can completely take away his recovery when used right.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Are the damage buffs to nair and fair the only changes Ike got?

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

Are the damage buffs to nair and fair the only changes Ike got?

Knockback as well, which is significant.

 

[-RedX-]

We don't know if knockback values got adjusted yet.
Placebo: I feel a difference in Ike's air speed but maybe it's just been a while since I looked at 3DS Smash.

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

We don't know if knockback values got adjusted yet.
Placebo: I feel a difference in Ike's air speed but maybe it's just been a while since I looked at 3DS Smash.

I can tell you by the kill percents I recorded with the other characters prior to the patch and the ones I have now. Ike's knockback on Fair/Nair is insane now.

 

[Arrei]

Insane enough to not simply be a result of the 1% damage buff? After all, Ftilt lost a pretty significant amount of kill power when it lost 1.5% damage to accommodate its startup buff.

 

[WorstGanonWorld]

What are your thought on the knockback change of Ike´s nair (more vertical knockback now)?

Looks like Nair>Uair at higher % could be a new kill confirm on fastfallers like Falcon/Cloud etc.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Wasn't that always a kill confirm?